One in ten South African living with HIV

According to a recent report released by Statistics SA, one in ten South Africans is living with HIV. Pali Lehohla, the statistician general who was speaking at the release of the mid-year population estimates report in Pretoria said 6.19 million South Africans out of the estimated total population of 54.95 million are living with the disease. This statistics shows a 2.17 million increase since 2002, when 4.02 million South Africans were living with the virus. The silver lining though, is the fact that infections are dropping, with the incidence rate for people between ages 15 and 49 declining. Also, life expectancy in South Africa is increasing with an average of 62.5 years in 2015, an increase of 9.1 years since 2004.